In football, you have plays. The plays are called by the coach and everyone knows where everyone else is going to go based on how the play is drawn up.
Which is why there needs to be more practice in football. Each one of those plays needs to be practiced over and over again so that people learn how to adjust to what the defense is doing for each play.
The defense needs to learn how to adjust a called play when the offense is running or when it is passing, how to react to a playaction, how to
read that it's playaction. Look for pulling linemen to read a sweep/end around. Where the receivers are likely to break, etc.
Then you have to practice what will be done when the opponent calls certain plays. How to read a defenseive package, how to read the offensive play as it's happening.
People who don't know anything about football think that just because the play is called and designed it always goes according to the "plan". The truth is, it very rarely goes as it was drawn up. It constantly requires on-field adjustments by the players. In essence, it's exactly the same as it is for soccer, but instead of a general sense of cohesion, it has to be done for
every single play in the playbook.
The place where someone is supposed to be is dictated by what the
other team does, and that isn't drawn up before hand. So
all contingencies need to be practiced for so that player can recognize all of the permutations and know where they need to be in a given situation.
And that's for all three phases of the game. Offense, defense, and special teams where diferent players are present who have different tasks and in fact totally different goals, strategies and roles.
Soccer can switch from offense to defense and back again to offense in a total of 2 seconds.
However, unlike in gridiron football, where the kids play for seven seconds and play with themselves for 40 while the coach is communicating the next play in, real football plays with a running clock with only a break at halftime.
That's precicley the reason why
less practice is necessary for soccer.
There is very little coaching that goes on while the match is going on. Players have to know through practice and experience where their teammates are going to be in any given fluid situation because it can't be drawn on a playbook, like in gridiron football. I am not denigrating the importance of practice in gridiron, but your comments about real football are way off base...
And I'm not denigrating the importance of practice of soccer. I'mjust pointing out that there is more of a need for practice in football than there is in soccer.